[GHFigs]

google never cried sour grapes on nortel

The argument for this is pretty simple: They bid up several billion dollars. They lost. Suddenly, they decry the bidding as anti-competitive. Sour grapes.

"The winning $4.5 billion for Nortel’s patent portfolio was nearly five times larger than the pre-auction estimate of $1 billion. Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means — which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop." -- http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-patents-attack-a...

[divtxt]

Sour grapes would be if Google had said "the Nortel patents suck" after they lost.

What you're describing is closer to "they ganged up against us".

[oemera]

No it's not! Google wanted those patents "to save Android from the competitors" and when didn't get them they just said: "Nah, we didn't want them anyway". Are you kidding me? Who on earth would bid such an amount if they didn't want those patents.

Also no-one wrote a article about the patents beside Google itself. The ones who didn't get shit.

Sorry but if this aren't sour grapes I don't know what is.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Microsoft wanted to gang with Google in the first place but after Google lost they said "they ganged against us". It's just ridiculous.

[mayanksinghal]

This has been stated a lot of times on HN, but anyways :)

1. I think you are mixing deals

2. GOOG accepting MS offer would have been dumb. Google wanted the patents to avoid lawsuits from MS-Apple. Teaming up with them would have meant that these patents are useless against them (I assume that Apple/MS would not have said - okay we team up for now, but you can sue us using these patents later).

3. I am not sure, but a lot of people have quoted that Google has been vocal about the stupidity of patent system even before these deals. Also if I am involved in a deal, I will never speak of it (or the stupidity of it) in public. That again, would be a dumb move. So yes, Google's statement should have arrived after they lost the deal. Also, AFAIK they said that the patents might be useless to them technically, but they needed them for litigation wars.

4. Using Pi*1bil as a bid, is no different than 4bil (Other than the magnitude of course). Not to logical people at least. Yes, lawyers who are not aware of the digits of Pi or shareholders who bought shares of the company X because the saw it climbing a month ago, would feel that, but that's dumb stereotyping of numbers - I would say. In fact, 3.14Bil sounds a lot more cultural and sophisticated to me than 3.1 or 4. But that's probably the geek in me.

5. Yes they paid 3 times more. But they also got 3 times the patents (and these are not licensed to MS!) + 1x times patents in review. In addition they got a manufacturing line they can innovate on and a lot of talent.

Also, MM has 3.5Bil in cash reserves. That means that it's actually 12.5 - 3.5. So, still a better deal, I would say. Then again, that's just a CS student talking - I have no idea what these patents are worth.

Edit: Formatting.

[oemera]

First of all sorry I wasn't aware that this has been stated a lot here.

I'm not sure if Google is really the hero at this point like other commenters are stating here. Maybe they bought 3 times more patents than MS/Apple but it's not clear to me if all of those are really interesting in this fight.

I have to admit that I just don't like the Google way here. Saying that patent system sucks and and patents are bad but buying more and more patents is just silly don't you think? Plus they said that Nortels weren't worth 4 billion but they bought 3x patents for 12,5 billion. It's just the same ratio isn't it?.

Let's just see how this will end.

[esmevane]

The bottom line is, the only way to avoid getting defenestrated in patent disputes in court, is to have a portfolio. There was no choice if Google wanted to protect their interests. Logically, they had to do something.

As said previously, this acquisition hits a trifecta of benefits, not just a large and Android-relevant patent portfolio. Google can now directly create Android pure phones to their intended specifications, and they have tremendous talent and resources at their disposal.

Patents were huge, but to look at this issue and only see the patents is a logical foible.

[Confusion]

The weasel word here is 'suddenly'. They first tried to win the game the easiest, surest way. Now they have to resort to an unsure, annoying, longwinding way. They probably always considered it anti-competitive. That doesn't mean they first and only try to resolve it through playing that card.